- •The Principal Terms and Notions of Contrastive Typology (isomorphic / allomorphic features, absolute / near universals, typological constants, dominant and recessive features, etc.).
- •2. The Subject-matter of Contrastive Grammar and its Theoretical and Practical
- •3. Methods of Contrastive Grammar
- •4.English and Ukrainian Grammar аs System and Structure
- •5. Levels of Language Structure and their Language and Speech Units.
- •Seminar 1 (Part 2) constants for contrasting english and ukrainian morphological systems
- •Isomorphism and Allomorphism of Morphemes in English and Ukrainian
- •Quantitative and Qualitative Correlation of Affixal Morphemes in English and
- •Ukrainian.
- •Types of the Inflexional Morphemes in the Contrasted Languages.
- •Grammatical Meaning and Grammatical Category.
- •Isomorphism and Allomorphism in the Quantitative Representation of the Morphological Categories and Means of their Expression in the Nominals of the Contrasted Languages.
- •Words. Grammatical Forms of English and Ukrainian Words.
- •Parts of Speech in English and Ukrainian.
- •The Problem of “Word Classes” as the Parts of Speech in English and Ukrainian.
- •The verb
- •The noun
- •The adverb
- •The preposition
- •The adjective
- •The pronoun
- •The conjunction
- •Word class membership
The conjunction
It would be very unusual for anyone to either speak or write completely in simple sentences; instead we tend to use a mixture of simple, compound and complex sentences. One way to create longer, more complicated sentences is to use conjunctions. As we have already noted in the section on types of clause, conjunctions serve to connect two or more clauses, phrases or words together to make longer constructions. In the following examples, the conjunction is in bold:
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The coffee was strong, but sweet.
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We can go to the match or watch it on TV.
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She has a dog and two cats.
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When I arrived home, they had already eaten.
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I had to stop driving because the rain was so bad.
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Can I have a word with you, if you’ve got the time?
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Although he can’t swim, he goes sailing.
There are two types of conjunction. The first is the coordinating conjunction; examples of this can be seen in sentences a to c above. This type is always used to connect elements that share the same grammatical status, that is, main clause to main clause, verb to verb, noun to noun, adjective to adjective and so on. In sentence a two adjectives, strong and sweet, are conjoined, in b two verbs, go and watch and c two nouns, dog and cats.
The second type is the subordinating conjunction, which most often joins two or more unequal clauses to one another. Typically a main clause will be connected to a subordinate clause as we saw in the section on clause types. So in sentences d to g above, the subordinate clause (which you will remember cannot stand on its own, but needs another more important clause to complete the meaning) begins with a conjunction, here when, because, if and although.
Word class membership
Although the description above may give the impression that any one word within a single meaning belongs exclusively to one word class, you should note that this is not the case. Study the words in bold in the following examples:
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I couldn’t give her an immediate answer .
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I was surprised when he answered my letter.
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Do not write on the front of the answer sheet.
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In the first sentence, answer is being used as a noun – note the attributive adjectiveimmediate and the word an, both indicative of a following noun.
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In the second, answer is a verb – the subject he and the ending –ed show this.
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While in the third, answer tells you what kind of sheet is being talked about and is, therefore, an adjective.
This flexibility in word class membership is a peculiar feature of English among the European languages, many of which would require different endings to show the class of the word.